MAX SHINBURN.
The career of Max Shinburn can hardly be cited in proof of the old saying that honesty is the best policy. This notorious criminal won a fine fortune, as well as much evil fame, by his dishonest proceedings between 1860 and 1880, and after sundry vicissitudes, ended in Belgium as a millionaire, enjoying every luxury amidst the pleasantest surroundings.
According to one account, Shinburn was a German Jew, who emigrated to the United States rather hurriedly to evade police pursuit. He found his way, it is said, to St. Louis, and soon got into trouble there as a burglar; his intimate knowledge of the locksmith trade was useful to the new friends he made, but did not save him from capture and imprisonment. Another story is that he was born in Pennsylvania of decent parents, was well educated, and in due course became a bank clerk. His criminal tendencies were soon displayed by his defalcations; he stole a number of greenbacks, and covered the theft by fraudulent entries in the books. This ended his career of humdrum respectability, and he was next heard of at Boston, where he robbed a bank by burglariously entering the vaults, by means of his skill as a locksmith. We have here some corroboration of the first account of his origin; if he had begun life as a clerk he could not well have acquired skill as a locksmith. It is strengthened by the fact that his largest and most remunerative “affairs” were accomplished by forcing doors and opening safes. It was said of him that he could walk into any bank, for he could counterfeit any key; and that no safe, combination or other, could resist his attack. The number of banks he plundered was extraordinary; the New Windsor Bank of Maryland, a bank in Connecticut, and many more, yielded before him; and in New England alone he amassed great sums.
Shinburn spent in wasteful excess all that he thus guiltily earned. He lived most extravagantly, at the best hotels, consorting with the showiest people; he was to be seen on all racecourses, “plunging” wildly, and at the faro tables, where he played high. This continued for years. He escaped all retribution until a confederate betrayed him in connection with the wrecking of the Concord Bank, when at least 200,000 dollars was secured and divided among the gang. He was taken at Saratoga, the fashionable watering-place, and his arrest caused much sensation in the fast society of which he was so prominent a member.
Max Shinburn’s consignment to gaol checked his baleful activity, but not for long. His fame as a high-class gentleman criminal secured him considerate treatment, which, on the loose system of many American gaols, meant that his warders and he were on very familiar terms. One evening Shinburn called an officer to his cell, and after a short gossip at the door, invited him inside. Next moment he had seized the warder by the throat, overpowered him, and captured his keys. Then, making his victim fast, he walked straight out of the prison.
Once more taken and incarcerated, he once more escaped. This time, by suborning his warders, he obtained the necessary tools for sawing through the prison bars, and thus regained freedom. He soon resumed his old practices, and on a much larger and more brilliant scale. One of his chief feats was the forcing of the vaults of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company, at Whitehaven, Pennsylvania, from which he abstracted 56,000 dollars. He somehow contrived to obtain impressions of the locks, and manufactured the keys.
The famous detective, Pinkerton, was called in, and soon guessed that Shinburn had been at work. Some of the confederates were arrested, and presently Shinburn was taken, but only after a desperate encounter. Now, to ensure safe custody, the prisoner was handcuffed to one of Pinkerton’s assistants, and both were locked up in a room at the hotel. Yet Shinburn, during the night, contrived to pick the lock of the handcuff by means of the shank of his scarf-pin, and, shaking himself free, slipped quietly away. He fled to Europe, and paid a first visit to Belgium, but went back to the States to make one last grand coup. This was the robbery of the Ocean Bank in New York, from which he took £50,000 in securities, notes, and gold. With this fine booty he returned to Belgium, bought himself a title, and—at least outwardly—lived the life of an honest and respectable citizen. We have seen that Sheridan, another American “crook,” spent some years in Brussels, and it is strongly suspected that he and Shinburn were concerned in the famous mail train robbery and other great crimes in Belgium.
CHAPTER XVI.
SOME FEMALE CRIMINALS.
Criminal Women worse than Criminal Men—Bell Star—Comtesse Sandor—Mother M——, the famous female Receiver of Stolen Goods—The “German Princess”—Jenny Diver—The Baroness de Menckwitz—Emily Lawrence—Louisa Miles—Mrs. Gordon-Baillie: Her dashing Career: Becomes Mrs. Percival Frost: The Crofter’s Friend: Triumphal Visit to the Antipodes: Extensive Frauds on Tradesmen: Sentenced to Penal Servitude—A Viennese Impostor—Big Bertha, the “Confidence Queen.”